The
Bush administration
based its rationale for the war
principally on the assertion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs) and that the Iraqi government posed an immediate threat to the United States and its coalition allies.[57][58]
Select U.S. officials accused Saddam of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda,[59]
while others cited the desire to end a repressive dictatorship and bring democracy to the people of Iraq.[60][61]
After the invasion, no substantial evidence was found to verify the initial claims about WMDs. The rationale and misrepresentation of pre-war intelligence faced heavy criticism
within the U.S. and internationally.[62]

In the aftermath of the invasion, Iraq held
multi-party elections
in 2005. Nouri al-Maliki
became Prime Minister in 2006 and remained in office until 2014. The al-Maliki government enacted policies that were widely seen as having the effect of alienating the country's Sunni minority and worsening sectarian tensions. In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL) launched a military offensive in Northern Iraq and declared a worldwide Islamic caliphate, eliciting another military response from the United States and its allies. The Iraq War caused hundreds of thousands of civilian, and thousands of military casualties (see estimates below). The majority of casualties occurred as a result of the insurgency and civil conflicts between 2004 and 2007.

A 1990
Frontline
report on "The arming of Iraq" said, "Officially, most Western nations participated in a total arms embargo against Iraq during the 1980s, but ... Western companies, primarily in Germany and Great Britain, but also in the United States, sold Iraq the key technology for its chemical, missile, and nuclear programs. ... [M]any Western governments seemed remarkably indifferent, if not enthusiastic, about those deals. ... [I]n Washington, the government consistently followed a policy which allowed and perhaps encouraged the extraordinary growth of Saddam Hussein's arsenal and his power."[63]
The Western arming of Iraq took place in the context of the Iran-Iraq War, which had seen
NATO
lose a valuable ally in Iran
after the Iranian Revolution.

As part of its weapons inspection obligations, Iraq was required to supply a full declaration of its current weapons capabilities and manufacturing. On 3 November 2002, Iraq supplied an 11,800-page report to the
UN Security Council
and the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), stating that it had no WMDs. The IAEA and UNMOVIC, the two organizations charged with inspecting Iraq's weapons, reported that the declaration was incomplete.[68]

In 1990, before the
Persian Gulf War,
Iraq
had stockpiled 550 short tons (500 t) of yellowcakeuranium
at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of Baghdad.[69]
In late February 2002, the CIA sent former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson
to investigate reports
(later found to be forgeries) that Iraq was attempting to purchase additional yellowcake from Niger. Wilson returned and informed the CIA that reports of yellowcake sales to Iraq were "unequivocally wrong."[70]
The Bush administration, however, continued to allege Iraq's attempts to obtain additional yellowcake were a justification for military action, most prominently in the January 2003, State of the Union
address, in which President Bush declared that Iraq had sought uranium, citing British intelligence
sources.[71]

In response, Wilson wrote a critical
New York Times
op-ed piece in June 2003 stating that he had personally investigated claims of yellowcake purchases and believed them to be fraudulent.[72][73]
After Wilson's op-ed, Wilson's wife Valerie Plame
was publicly identified as an undercover CIA analyst by the columnist Robert Novak. This led to a
Justice Department investigation
into the source of the leak. The federal investigation led to the conviction of Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.[69]

In September 2002, the Bush administration, the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) said attempts by Iraq to acquire high-strength
aluminum tubes
were prohibited under the UN monitoring program and pointed to a clandestine effort to make centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs.[75][76]
This analysis was opposed by the United States Department of Energy
(DOE) and INR, which was significant because of DOE's expertise in such gas centrifuges and nuclear weapons programs. The DOE and INR argued that the Iraqi tubes were poorly suited for centrifuges and that while it was technically possible with additional modification, conventional military uses were more plausible.[77]
A report released by the Institute for Science and International Security
in 2002 reported that it was highly unlikely that the tubes could be used to enrich uranium.[78]

An effort by the DOE to correct this detail in comments prepared for
United States Secretary of StateColin Powell's UN appearance was rebuffed by the administration[78][79]
and Powell, in his address to the UN Security Council
just before the war, referenced the aluminum tubes, stating that while experts disagreed on whether or not the tubes were destined for a centrifuge program, the specifications of the tubes were unusually tight.[80]
Powell later admitted he had presented what turned out to be an inaccurate case to the UN on Iraqi weapons, and the intelligence he was relying on was, in some cases, "deliberately misleading."[81][82][83]
After the 2008 U.S. presidential election, and the election of
Democratic party
nominee Barack Obama, President
Bush
stated that "[my] biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq".[84]

The CIA had contacted Iraq's foreign minister,
Naji Sabri, who was being paid by the French as an agent. Sabri informed them that Saddam had hidden poison gas among Sunni tribesmen, had ambitions for a nuclear program but that it was not active, and that no biological weapons were being produced or stockpiled, although research was underway.[85]
According to Sidney Blumenthal, George Tenet briefed Bush on 18 September 2002, that Sabri had informed them that Iraq did not have WMD.

On 21 June 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released key points from a classified report from the National Ground Intelligence Center on the recovery of degraded chemical munitions in Iraq. The report stated, "Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain potentially lethal
mustard
and pure sarin
nerve agent." However, all are thought to be pre-1991 Gulf War
munitions.[86]
According to the commander of the National Ground Intelligence Center "These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction,". In 2006, 2,400 nerve-agent rockets were found in a single compound.[87]

In October 2014, the New York Times reported that U.S. servicemen had been exposed and injured during the disposal and destruction of abandoned 4,990 chemical weapons that had been discovered in Iraq.[88]
CBS News reported that the U.S. government had concealed the fact that troops had been injured by chemical weapons.[89][90]
US soldiers reporting exposure to mustard gas
and sarin
allege they were required to keep their exposure secret, sometimes declined admission to hospital and evacuation home despite the request of their commanders.[90]
"We were absolutely told not to talk about it" by a colonel, the former sergeant said.[90]

In November 2014, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons reported the recovery and destruction of 4,530 aging chemical weapons by American forces.[91]

In February 2015,
The New York Times
revealed that following the recovery of 17 Borak in 2004 and early 2005, the United States
began acquiring and destroying Borak rockets. The "extraordinary arms purchase plan", known as
Operation Avarice, continued into 2006 and led to the destroying of more than 400 Borak rockets filled with
sarin. The sarin was of a higher purity level than that produced in Iraq in the 1980s.[92]

Based on reports obtained by the German intelligence service from an Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball", Colin Powell presented evidence to the United Nations security council that Iraq had an active biological weapons programs. On 15 February 2011, the defector—a scientist identified as Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi—admitted to journalists working for
The Guardian
newspaper that he lied to the Bundesnachrichtendienst
in order to strengthen the case against Saddam Hussein, whom he wished to see removed from power.[93]

In December 2009, the former
Britishprime minister,
Tony Blair, stated that he "would still have thought it right to remove [Saddam Hussein]" regardless of whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction or not.[94]

In the days immediately following 9/11, the Bush Administration national security team actively debated an invasion of Iraq. A memo written by Sec. Rumsfeld dated 27 November 2001 considers a U.S.–Iraq war. One section of the memo questions "How start?", listing multiple possible justifications for a U.S.–Iraq War.[95]

During 2002, the amount of ordnance used by British and American aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones of Iraq increased compared to the previous years[96]
and by August had "become a full air offensive". Tommy Franks, the allied commander, later stated that the bombing was designed to "degrade" the Iraqi air defense system before an invasion.[97]

The resolution granted the authorization by the
Constitution of the United States
and the United States Congress
for the President to command the military
to fight anti-United States violence. Citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Saddam regime and promote a democratic replacement. The authorization was signed by President George W. Bush on 16 October 2002.

Chief UN weapons inspector
Hans Blix
remarked in January 2003 that "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance—not even today—of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."[100]
Among other things he noted that 1,000 short tons (910 t) of chemical agent were unaccounted for, information on Iraq's VX nerve agent
program was missing, and that "no convincing evidence" was presented for the destruction of 8,500 litres (1,900 imp gal; 2,200 US gal) of anthrax that had been declared.[100]

In the
2003 State of the Union address, President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs". On 5 February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the UN to present evidence that Iraq was hiding unconventional weapons.[101]
The French government also believed that Saddam had stockpiles of anthrax
and botulismtoxin, and the ability to produce VX.[102]
In March, Blix said progress had been made in inspections, and no evidence of WMD had been found.[103]
Iraqi scientist Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed "Curveball", admitted in February 2011 that he had lied to the CIA about biological weapons in order to get the U.S. to attack and remove Saddam from power.[104]

In early 2003, the U.S., British, and Spanish governments proposed the so-called "eighteenth resolution" to give Iraq a deadline for compliance with previous resolutions enforced by the threat of military action. This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn due to lack of support on the UN Security Council. In particular,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) members France, Germany and Canada and non-NATO member Russia were opposed to military intervention in Iraq, due to the high level of risk to the international community's security, and defended disarmament through diplomacy.[105][106]

A meeting between George W. Bush and
Tony Blair
took place on 31 January 2003, in the White House.
A secret memo of this meeting
purportedly showed that the Bush administration had already decided on the invasion of Iraq at that point. Bush was allegedly floating the idea of painting a U‑2 spyplane
in UN colors and letting it fly low over Iraq to provoke Iraqi forces into shooting it down, thereby providing a pretext for the United States and Britain to invade. Bush and Blair made a secret deal to carry out the invasion regardless of whether WMD were discovered by UN weapons inspectors, in direct contradiction with statements Blair made to the British House of Commons
afterwards that the Iraqi regime would be given a final chance to disarm. In the memo, Bush is paraphrased as saying, "The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin."[107]
Bush said to Blair that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups" in Iraq after the war.

In October 2002, former U.S. President
Bill Clinton
warned about possible dangers of pre-emptive military action against Iraq. Speaking in the UK on a Labour Party
conference he said: "As a preemptive action today, however well-justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future.... I don't care how precise your bombs and your weapons are, when you set them off, innocent people will die."[108][109]Hillary Clinton
while serving as senator voted in favor for military action, though she now says it was a mistake.[110]
The majority of Democrats in Congress voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, although a majority of Democrats in the Senate voted in favor of it. Sen.
Jim Webb
wrote shortly before the vote "Those who are pushing for a unilateral war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we invade."[111]

In the same period,
Pope John Paul II
publicly condemned the military intervention. During a private meeting, he also said directly to George W. Bush: "Mr President, you know my opinion about Iraq War. Lets talk about something else. Every violence, against one or a million, is a blasphemy addressed to the image and likeness of God."[112]

Anti-War protest in London, September 2002. Organised by the British Stop the War Coalition, up to 400,000 took part in the protest.[113]

On 20 January 2003,
French Foreign MinisterDominique de Villepin
declared "we believe that military intervention would be the worst solution".[114]
Meanwhile, anti-war groups
across the world organised public protests. According to French academic Dominique Reynié, between 3 January and 12 April 2003,
36 million
people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against war in Iraq, with demonstrations on 15 February 2003, being the largest and most prolific.[115]Nelson Mandela
voiced his opposition in late January, stating "All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil," and questioning if Bush deliberately undermined the U.N. "because the secretary-general of the United Nations [was] a black man".[116]

In February 2003, the U.S. Army's top general,
Eric Shinseki, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it would take "several hundred thousand soldiers" to secure Iraq.[117]
Two days later, U.S. Defense SecretaryDonald Rumsfeld
said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops required to win the war, and that "the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces is far from the mark." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
said Shinseki's estimate was "way off the mark," because other countries would take part in an occupying force.[118]

In March 2003, Hans Blix reported that "no evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found" in Iraq, saying that progress was made in inspections, which would continue. He estimated the time remaining for disarmament being verified through inspections to be "months".[103]
But the U.S. government announced that "diplomacy has failed", and that it would proceed with a coalition of allied countries—named the "coalition of the willing"—to rid Iraq of its alleged WMD.[citation needed]
The U.S. government abruptly advised UN weapons inspectors to leave Baghdad
immediately.[119]

There were serious
legal questions
surrounding the launching of the war against Iraq and the Bush Doctrine
of preemptive war
in general. On 16 September 2004, Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, said of the invasion, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the
UN Charter. From our point of view, from the Charter point of view, it was illegal."[120]

In November 2008
Lord Bingham, the former British
Law Lord, described the war as a serious violation of
international law, and accused Britain and the United States of acting like a "world
vigilante". He also criticized the post-invasion record of Britain as "an occupying power in Iraq". Regarding the treatment of Iraqi detainees in
Abu Ghraib, Bingham said: "Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the
Bush administration."[121]
In July 2010, Deputy Prime Minister of the UKNick Clegg, in an official
PMQs session
in Parliament, condemned the invasion of Iraq as illegal.[122]
Theorist Francis Fukuyama
has argued that "the Iraq war and the close association it created between military invasion and democracy promotion tarnished the latter".[123]

Most importantly, their efforts organized the
KurdishPeshmerga
to become the northern front of the invasion. Together this force defeated Ansar al-Islam
in Iraqi Kurdistan
before the invasion and then defeated the Iraqi army
in the north.[125][126]
The battle against Ansar al-Islam led to the death of a substantial number of militants and the uncovering of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat.[124][127]

At 5:34 a.m.
Baghdad
time on 20 March 2003 (9:34 p.m., 19 March EST) the surprise[128]
military invasion of Iraq began.[129]
There was no declaration of war.[130]
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by
U.S. Army
General Tommy Franks, under the code-name
"Operation Iraqi Freedom",[131]
the UK code-name Operation Telic, and the Australian code-name
Operation Falconer. Coalition forces also cooperated with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the north. Approximately forty other governments, the "Coalition of the Willing," participated by providing troops, equipment, services, security, and special forces, with 248,000 soldiers from the United States, 45,000 British soldiers, 2,000 Australian soldiers and 194 Polish soldiers from
Special Forces
unit GROM
sent to Kuwait for the invasion.[132]
The invasion force was also supported by Iraqi Kurdishmilitia troops, estimated to number upwards of 70,000.[133]

Iraqi tank on Highway 27 destroyed in April 2003

According to
General Tommy Franks, there were eight objectives of the invasion, "First, ending the regime of Saddam Hussein. Second, to identify, isolate, and eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Third, to search for, to capture, and to drive out terrorists from that country. Fourth, to collect such intelligence as we can relate to terrorist networks. Fifth, to collect such intelligence as we can relate to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction. Sixth, to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian support to the displaced and to many needy Iraqi citizens. Seventh, to secure Iraq's
oil fields
and resources, which belong to the Iraqi people. And last, to help the Iraqi people create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government."[134]

Map of the invasion routes and major operations/battles of the Iraq War as of 2007

The invasion was a quick and decisive operation encountering major resistance, though not what the U.S., British and other forces expected. The Iraqi regime had prepared to fight both a conventional and irregular war at the same time, conceding territory when faced with superior conventional forces, largely armored, but launching smaller scale attacks in the rear using fighters dressed in civilian and paramilitary clothes. Since the initiation of the war in Iraq, numerous programs were created to "enhance psychological resilience and prevent psychological morbidity in troops."[135]

The heavy armor of the
U.S. 3rd Infantry Division
moved westward and then northward through the western desert toward Baghdad, while the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
moved more easterly along Highway 1 through the center of the country, and 1 (UK) Armoured Division
moved northward through the eastern marshland. The U.S. 1st Marine Division fought through Nasiriyah
in a battle to seize the major road junction and nearby Talil Airfield. The United States Army 3rd Infantry Division defeated Iraqi forces entrenched in and around the airfield.

With the Nasiriyah and Talil Airfields secured in its rear, the 3rd Infantry Division supported by
101st Airborne Division
continued its attack north toward Najaf and Karbala, but a severe sand storm slowed the coalition advance and there was a halt to consolidate and make sure the supply lines were secure. When they started again they secured the Karbala Gap, a key approach to Baghdad, then secured the bridges over the Euphrates River, and U.S. forces poured through the gap on to Baghdad. In the middle of Iraq, the 1st Marine Division fought its way to the eastern side of Baghdad, and prepared for the attack into Baghdad to seize it.[136]

In the north, OIF‑1 used the largest special operations force since the successful attack on the
Taliban
government of Afghanistan
just over a year earlier.

On 9 April, Baghdad fell, ending Saddam's 24‑year rule. U.S. forces seized the deserted
Ba'ath Party
ministries and stage-managed[137]
the tearing down of a huge iron statue of Saddam, photos and video of which became symbolic of the event, although later controversial. Not seen in the photos or heard on the videos, shot with a zoom lens, was the chant of the inflamed crowd for
Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric.[138]
In November 2008, Iraqi protesters staged a similar stomping on and burning of an effigy of George W. Bush.[139]
The abrupt fall of Baghdad was accompanied by a widespread outpouring of gratitude toward the invaders, but also massive civil disorder, including the looting
of public and government buildings and drastically increased crime.[140][141]

According to
the Pentagon, 250,000 short tons (230,000 t) (of 650,000 short tons (590,000 t) total) of ordnance was looted, providing a significant source of ammunition for the
Iraqi insurgency. The invasion phase concluded when
Tikrit, Saddam's home town, fell with little resistance to the
U.S. Marines
of Task Force Tripoli.

In the invasion phase of the war (19 March–30 April), an estimated 9,200 Iraqi combatants were killed by coalition forces along with an estimated 3,750 non-combatants, i.e. civilians who did not take up arms.[142]
Coalition forces reported the death in combat of 139 U.S. military personnel[143]
and 33 UK military personnel.[144]

A Marine CorpsM1 Abrams
tank patrols a Baghdad street after its fall in 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The humvee Staff Sgt. Michael F. Barrett, military policeman, Marine Wing Support Squadron 373, was riding when it was struck by an improvised explosive device attack in Iraq Sept. 29, 2004. Barrett was severely injured in the attack and is still recovering from his wounds.

Nevertheless, Saddam Hussein remained at large and significant pockets of resistance remained. After Bush's speech, coalition forces noticed a flurry of attacks on its troops began to gradually increase in various regions, such as the "Sunni Triangle".[145]
The initial Iraqi insurgents were supplied by hundreds of weapons caches created before the invasion by the Iraqi army and Republican Guard.

Initially, Iraqi resistance (described by the coalition as
"Anti-Iraqi Forces") largely stemmed from
fedayeen
and Saddam/Ba'ath Party
loyalists, but soon religious radicals and Iraqis angered by the occupation contributed to the insurgency. The three provinces with the highest number of attacks were Baghdad,
Al Anbar, and
Salah Ad Din. Those three provinces account for 35% of the population, but as of 5 December 2006, were responsible for 73% of U.S. military deaths and an even higher percentage of recent U.S. military deaths (about 80%.)[146]

Post-invasion Iraq
coalition efforts commenced after the fall of Saddam's regime. The coalition nations, together with the United Nations, began to work to establish a stable, compliant democratic
state capable of defending itself from non-coalition forces, as well as overcoming internal divisions.[147][148]

Meanwhile, coalition military forces launched several operations around the
Tigris
River peninsula and in the Sunni Triangle. A series of similar operations were launched throughout the summer in the Sunni Triangle. Toward late-2003, the intensity and pace of insurgent attacks began to increase. A sharp surge in guerrilla attacks ushered in an insurgent effort that was termed as the "Ramadan Offensive", as it coincided with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan.

To counter this offensive, coalition forces began to use air power and artillery again for the first time since the end of the invasion by striking suspected ambush sites and mortar launching positions. Surveillance of major routes, patrols, and raids on suspected insurgents were stepped up. In addition, two villages, including Saddam's birthplace of
al-Auja
and the small town of Abu Hishma
were surrounded by barbed wire and carefully monitored.

The CPA was originally headed by
Jay Garner, a former U.S. military officer, but his appointment lasted only until May 11, 2003, when President Bush appointed
L. Paul Bremer. On May 16, 2003, his first day on the job, Paul Bremer issued CPA executive order No.1 to exclude from the new Iraqi government and administration members of the Baathist party. This eventually led to the removal of 85,000 to 100,000 Iraqi people from their job,[149]
including 40,000 school teachers who had joined the Baath Party simply to keep their jobs. U.S. army general Sanchez called the decision a "catastrophic failure".[150]
Bremer served until the CPA's dissolution in July 2004.

In Summer 2003, the multinational forces focused on
capturing the remaining leaders
of the former government. On 22 July, a raid by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division
and soldiers from Task Force 20
killed Saddam's sons (Uday
and Qusay) along with one of his grandsons. In all, over 300 top leaders of the former government were killed or captured, as well as numerous lesser functionaries and military personnel.

With the capture of Saddam and a drop in the number of insurgent attacks, some concluded the multinational forces were prevailing in the fight against the insurgency. The provisional government began training the new Iraqi security forces intended to police the country, and the United States promised over
$20 billion
in reconstruction money in the form of credit against Iraq's future oil revenues. Oil revenue was also used for rebuilding schools and for work on the electrical and refining infrastructure.

The start of 2004 was marked by a relative lull in violence. Insurgent forces reorganised during this time, studying the multinational forces' tactics and planning a renewed offensive. However, violence did increase during the
Iraq Spring Fighting of 2004
with foreign fighters from around the Middle East as well as al-Qaeda in Iraq
(an affiliated al-Qaeda
group), led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
helping to drive the insurgency.[citation needed]

U.S. troops fire mortars

As the insurgency grew there was a distinct change in targeting from the coalition forces towards the new Iraqi Security Forces, as hundreds of Iraqi civilians and police were killed over the next few months in a series of massive bombings. An organized Sunni insurgency, with deep roots and both nationalist and Islamist motivations, was becoming more powerful throughout Iraq. The Shia
Mahdi Army
also began launching attacks on coalition targets in an attempt to seize control from Iraqi security forces. The southern and central portions of Iraq were beginning to erupt in urban guerrilla combat as multinational forces attempted to keep control and prepared for a counteroffensive.

The offensive was resumed in November 2004 in the bloodiest battle of the war so far: the
Second Battle of Fallujah, described by the U.S. military as "the heaviest
urban combat
(that they had been involved in) since the battle of Hue City
in Vietnam."[158]
During the assault, U.S. forces used white phosphorus
as an incendiary weapon against insurgent personnel, attracting controversy. The 46‑day battle resulted in a victory for the coalition, with 95 U.S. soldiers killed along with approximately 1,350 insurgents. Fallujah was totally devastated during the fighting, though civilian casualties were low, as they had mostly fled before the battle.[159]

Another major event of that year was the revelation of widespread
prisoner abuse
at Abu Ghraib, which received international media attention in April 2004. First reports of the
Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, as well as graphic pictures showing U.S. military personnel taunting and abusing Iraqi prisoners, came to public attention from a
60 Minutes II
news report (28 April) and a Seymour M. Hersh
article in The New Yorker
(posted online on 30 April.)[160]
Military correspondent Thomas Ricks
claimed that these revelations dealt a blow to the moral justifications for the occupation in the eyes of many people, especially Iraqis, and was a turning point in the war.[161]

2004 also marked the beginning of
Military Transition Teams
in Iraq, which were teams of U.S. military advisors assigned directly to New Iraqi Army units.

On 31 January, Iraqis
elected
the Iraqi Transitional Government
in order to draft a permanent constitution. Although some violence and a widespread Sunni boycott
marred the event, most of the eligible Kurd and Shia populace participated. On 4 February, Paul Wolfowitz
announced that 15,000 U.S. troops whose tours of duty had been extended in order to provide election security would be pulled out of Iraq by the next month.[162]
February to April proved to be relatively peaceful months compared to the carnage of November and January, with insurgent attacks averaging 30 a day from the prior average of 70.

The
Battle of Abu Ghraib
on 2 April 2005 was an attack on United States forces at Abu Ghraib prison, which consisted of heavy mortar and rocket fire, under which armed insurgents attacked with grenades, small arms, and two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). The U.S. force's munitions ran so low that orders to fix bayonets were given in preparation for hand-to-hand fighting. An estimated 80–120 armed insurgents launched a massive coordinated assault on the U.S. military facility and internment camp at Abu Ghraib, Iraq. It was considered to be the largest coordinated assault on a U.S. base since the Vietnam War.[163]

Hopes for a quick end to the insurgency and a withdrawal of U.S. troops were dashed in May, Iraq's bloodiest month since the invasion. Suicide bombers, believed to be mainly disheartened Iraqi Sunni Arabs, Syrians and Saudis, tore through Iraq. Their targets were often Shia gatherings or civilian concentrations of Shias. As a result, over 700 Iraqi civilians died in that month, as well as 79 U.S. soldiers.

The summer of 2005 saw fighting around
Baghdad
and at Tall Afar
in northwestern Iraq as U.S. forces tried to seal off the Syrian border. This led to fighting in the autumn in the small towns of the Euphrates
valley between the capital and that border.[164]

The beginning of 2006 was marked by government creation talks, growing sectarian violence, and continuous anti-coalition attacks. Sectarian violence expanded to a new level of intensity following the
al-Askari Mosque bombing
in the Iraqi city of Samarra, on 22 February 2006. The explosion at the mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shi'a Islam, is believed to have been caused by a bomb planted by al-Qaeda.

Although no injuries occurred in the blast, the mosque was severely damaged and the bombing resulted in violence over the following days. Over 100 dead bodies with bullet holes were found on 23 February, and at least 165 people are thought to have been killed. In the aftermath of this attack the U.S. military calculated that the average homicide rate in
Baghdad
tripled from 11 to 33 deaths per day. In 2006 the UN described the environment in Iraq as a "civil war-like situation".[166]

On March 12, five United States Army soldiers of the
502nd Infantry Regiment, raped the 14-year-old Iraqi girl
Abeer Qassim Hamza al‑Janabi, and then murdered her, her father, her mother Fakhriya Taha Muhasen and her six-year-old sister Hadeel Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. The soldiers then set fire to the girl's body to conceal evidence of the crime.[167]
Four of the soldiers were convicted of rape
and murder
and the fifth was convicted of lesser crimes for the involvement in the war crime, that became known as the
Mahmudiyah killings.[168][169]

Nouri al-Maliki meets with George W. Bush, June 2006

On 6 June 2006, the United States was successful in tracking
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of
al-Qaeda in Iraq
who was killed in a targeted killing, while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) north of Baqubah. Having been tracked by a British UAV, radio contact was made between the controller and two United States Air Force
F-16C jets, which identified the house and at 14:15 GMT, the lead jet dropped two 500‑pound (230 kg) guided bombs, a laser-guided GBU‑12 and GPS-guided GBU‑38 on the building where he was located at. Six others—three male and three female individuals—were also reported killed. Among those killed were one of his wives and their child.

The
Iraq Study Group Report
was released on 6 December 2006. Iraq Study Group, made up of people from both of the major U.S. parties, was led by co-chairs James Baker, a former Secretary of State (Republican), and
Lee H. Hamilton, a former U.S. Representative (Democrat). It concluded that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" and "U.S. forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no foreseeable end." The report's 79 recommendations include increasing diplomatic measures with
Iran
and Syria
and intensifying efforts to train Iraqi troops. On 18 December, a Pentagon report found that insurgent attacks were averaging about 960 attacks per week, the highest since the reports had begun in 2005.[170]

Coalition forces formally transferred control of a province to the Iraqi government, the first since the war. Military prosecutors charged eight U.S. Marines with the murders of 24 Iraqi civilians in
Haditha
in November 2005, 10 of them women and children. Four officers were also charged with dereliction of duty
in relation to the event.[171]

Saddam Hussein was hanged on 30 December 2006, after being found guilty of
crimes against humanity
by an Iraqi court after a year-long trial.[172]

In a January 10, 2007, televised address to the U.S. public, Bush proposed 21,500 more troops for Iraq, a job program for Iraqis, more reconstruction proposals, and $1.2 billion for these programs.[173]
On 23 January 2007, in the 2007 State of the Union Address, Bush announced "deploying reinforcements of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq".

On 10 May 2007, 144 Iraqi Parliamentary lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal.[176]
On 3 June 2007, the Iraqi Parliament voted 85 to 59 to require the Iraqi government to consult with Parliament before requesting additional extensions of the UN Security Council Mandate for Coalition operations in Iraq.[177]
Despite this, the mandate was renewed on 18 December 2007, without the approval of the Iraqi parliament.[178]

In a speech made to Congress on 10 September 2007, Petraeus "envisioned the withdrawal of roughly 30,000 U.S. troops by next summer, beginning with a Marine contingent [in September]."[181]
On 13 September, Bush backed a limited withdrawal of troops from Iraq.[182]
Bush said 5,700 personnel would be home by Christmas 2007, and expected thousands more to return by July 2008. The plan would take troop numbers back to their level before the surge at the beginning of 2007.

U.S. soldiers take cover during a firefight
with insurgents in the Al Doura
section of Baghdad 7 March 2007.

By March 2008, violence in Iraq was reported curtailed by 40–80%, according to a Pentagon report.[183]
Independent reports[184][185]
raised questions about those assessments. An Iraqi military spokesman claimed that civilian deaths since the start of the troop surge plan were 265 in Baghdad, down from 1,440 in the four previous weeks. The New York Times
counted more than 450 Iraqi civilians killed during the same 28‑day period, based on initial daily reports from Iraqi Interior Ministry
and hospital officials.

Historically, the daily counts tallied by
The New York Times
have underestimated the total death toll by 50% or more when compared to studies by the United Nations, which rely upon figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry
and morgue figures.[186]

The rate of U.S. combat deaths in Baghdad nearly doubled to 3.14 per day in the first seven weeks of the "surge" in security activity, compared to previous period. Across the rest of Iraq it decreased slightly.[187][188]

On 14 August 2007, the
deadliest single attack of the whole war
occurred. Nearly 800 civilians were killed by a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks on the northern Iraqi settlement of Kahtaniya. More than 100 homes and shops were destroyed in the blasts. U.S. officials blamed al‑Qaeda. The targeted villagers belonged to the non-Muslim
Yazidi
ethnic minority. The attack may have represented the latest in a feud that erupted earlier that year when members of the Yazidi community stoned to death a teenage girl called Du'a Khalil Aswad
accused of dating a Sunni Arab man and converting to Islam. The killing of the girl was recorded on camera-mobiles and the video was uploaded onto the internet.[189][190][191][192]

On 13 September 2007,
Abdul Sattar Abu Risha
was killed in a bomb attack in the city of Ramadi.[193]
He was an important U.S. ally because he led the "Anbar Awakening", an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that opposed al-Qaeda. The latter organisation claimed responsibility for the attack.[194]
A statement posted on the Internet by the shadowy Islamic State of Iraq
called Abu Risha "one of the dogs of Bush" and described Thursday's killing as a "heroic operation that took over a month to prepare".[195]

A graph of U.S. troop fatalities in Iraq March 2003 – July 2010, the orange and blue months are the period of the troop surge
and its aftermath.

There was a reported trend of decreasing U.S. troop deaths after May 2007,[196]
and violence against coalition troops had fallen to the "lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion".[197]
These, and several other positive developments, were attributed to the surge by many analysts.[198]

Data from the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies such as the
Government Accountability Office
(GAO) found that daily attacks against civilians in Iraq remained "about the same" since February. The GAO also stated that there was no discernible trend in sectarian violence.[199]
However, this report ran counter to reports to Congress, which showed a general downward trend in civilian deaths and ethno-sectarian violence since December 2006.[200]
By late 2007, as the U.S. troop surge began to wind down, violence in Iraq had begun to decrease from its 2006 highs.[201]

Entire neighborhoods in Baghdad were ethnically cleansed by Shia and Sunni militias and
sectarian violence
has broken out in every Iraqi city where there is a mixed population.[202][203][204]
Investigative reporter Bob Woodward
cites U.S. government sources according to which the U.S. "surge" was not the primary reason for the drop in violence in 2007–08. Instead, according to that view, the reduction of violence was due to newer covert techniques by U.S. military and intelligence officials to find, target and kill insurgents, including working closely with former insurgents.[205]

In the Shia region near
Basra, British forces turned over security for the region to Iraqi Security Forces. Basra is the ninth province of Iraq's 18 provinces to be returned to local security forces' control since the beginning of the occupation.[206]

More than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country for the first time. 144 of the 275 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition that would require the Iraqi government to seek approval from Parliament before it requests an extension of the UN mandate for foreign forces to be in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2008. It also calls for a timetable for troop withdrawal and a freeze on the size of foreign forces. The UN Security Council mandate for U.S.‑led forces in Iraq will terminate "if requested by the government of Iraq."[207]
Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution called for by a majority of lawmakers.[208]
59% of those polled in the U.S. support a timetable for withdrawal.[209]

In mid-2007, the Coalition began a controversial program to recruit Iraqi Sunnis (often former insurgents) for the formation of "Guardian" militias. These Guardian militias are intended to support and secure various Sunni neighborhoods against the Islamists.[210]

In 2007, tensions increased greatly between
Iran
and Iraqi Kurdistan
due to the latter's giving sanctuary to the militant Kurdish secessionist group Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan
(PEJAK.) According to reports, Iran had been shelling PEJAK positions in Iraqi Kurdistan since 16 August. These tensions further increased with an alleged border incursion on 23 August by Iranian troops who attacked several Kurdish villages killing an unknown number of civilians and militants.[211]

Coalition forces also
began to target
alleged Iranian Quds force
operatives in Iraq, either arresting or killing suspected members. The Bush administration and coalition leaders began to publicly state that Iran was supplying weapons, particularly
EFP
devices, to Iraqi insurgents and militias although to date have failed to provide any proof for these allegations. Further sanctions on Iranian organizations were also announced by the Bush administration in the autumn of 2007. On 21 November 2007, Lieutenant General James Dubik, who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces, praised Iran for its "contribution to the reduction of violence" in Iraq by upholding its pledge to stop the flow of weapons, explosives and training of extremists in Iraq.[212]

Border incursions by
PKK
militants based in Northern Iraq have continued to harass Turkish forces, with casualties on both sides. In the fall of 2007, the Turkish military stated their right to cross the Iraqi Kurdistan border in "hot pursuit" of PKK militants and began shelling Kurdish areas in Iraq and attacking PKK bases in the Mount Cudi
region with aircraft.[213][214]
The Turkish parliament approved a resolution permitting the military to pursue the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan.[215]
In November, Turkish gunships attacked parts of northern Iraq in the first such attack by Turkish aircraft since the border tensions escalated.[216]
Another series of attacks in mid-December hit PKK targets in the Qandil, Zap, Avashin and Hakurk regions. The latest series of attacks involved at least 50 aircraft and artillery and Kurdish officials reported one civilian killed and two wounded.[217]

Additionally, weapons that were given to Iraqi security forces by the U.S. military were being recovered by authorities in Turkey after being used by PKK in that state.[218]

On 17 September 2007, the Iraqi government announced that it was revoking the license of the U.S. security firm
Blackwater USA
over the firm's involvement in the killing of eight civilians, including a woman and an infant,[219]
in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade.

Soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 14th Iraqi Army division graduate from basic training.

Throughout 2008, U.S. officials and independent think tanks began to point to improvements in the security situation, as measured by key statistics. According to the
U.S. Defense Department, in December 2008 the "overall level of violence" in the country had dropped 80% since before
the surge
began in January 2007, and the country's murder rate had dropped to prewar levels. They also pointed out that the casualty figure for U.S. forces in 2008 was 314 against a figure of 904 in 2007.[220]

According to the
Brookings Institution, Iraqi civilian fatalities numbered 490 in November 2008 as against 3,500 in January 2007, whereas attacks against the coalition numbered somewhere between 200 and 300 per week in the latter half of 2008, as opposed to a peak of nearly 1,600 in summer 2007. The number of Iraqi security forces killed was under 100 per month in the second half of 2008, from a high of 200 to 300 in summer 2007.[221]

Meanwhile, the proficiency of the Iraqi military increased as it launched a spring offensive against Shia militias, which Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki
had previously been criticized for allowing to operate. This began with a March operation
against the Mehdi Army
in Basra, which led to fighting in Shia areas up and down the country, especially in the Sadr City
district of Baghdad. By October, the British officer in charge of Basra said that since the operation the town had become "secure" and had a murder rate comparable to Manchester
in England.[222]
The U.S. military also said there had been a decrease of about a quarter in the quantity of Iranian-made explosives found in Iraq in 2008, possibly indicating a change in Iranian policy.[223]

Progress in Sunni areas continued after members of
the Awakening movement
were transferred from U.S. military to Iraqi control.[224]
In May, the Iraqi army – backed by coalition support – launched an offensive in Mosul, the last major Iraqi stronghold of al-Qaeda. Despite detaining thousands of individuals, the offensive failed to lead to major long-term security improvements in Mosul. At the end of the year, the city remained a major flashpoint.[225][226]

3D map of southern Turkey and northern Iraq

In the regional dimension, the ongoing conflict between Turkey and
PKK[227][228][229]
intensified on 21 February, when Turkey launched a ground attack
into the Quandeel Mountains of Northern Iraq. In the nine-day-long operation, around 10,000 Turkish troops advanced up to 25 km into Northern Iraq. This was the first substantial ground incursion by Turkish forces since 1995.[230][231]

Shortly after the incursion began, both the Iraqi cabinet and the Kurdistan regional government condemned Turkey's actions and called for the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops from the region.[232]
Turkish troops withdrew on 29 February.[233]
The fate of the Kurds and the future of the ethnically diverse city of Kirkuk
remained a contentious issue in Iraqi politics.

U.S. military officials met these trends with cautious optimism as they approached what they described as the "transition" embodied in the
U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, which was negotiated throughout 2008.[220]
The commander of the coalition, U.S. General Raymond T. Odierno, noted that "in military terms, transitions are the most dangerous time" in December 2008.[220]

An Iraqi soldier and vehicles from the 42nd Brigade, 11th Iraqi Army Division during a firefight with armed militiamen in the Sadr City district of Baghdad 17 April 2008.

At the end of March, the Iraqi Army, with Coalition air support, launched an offensive, dubbed "Charge of the Knights", in Basra to secure the area from militias. This was the first major operation where the Iraqi Army did not have direct combat support from conventional coalition ground troops. The offensive was opposed by the
Mahdi Army, one of the militias, which controlled much of the region.[234][235]
Fighting quickly spread to other parts of Iraq: including Sadr City,
Al Kut,
Al Hillah
and others. During the fighting Iraqi forces met stiff resistance from militiamen in Basra to the point that the Iraqi military offensive slowed to a crawl, with the high attrition rates finally forcing the Sadrists to the negotiating table.

By 12 May 2008, Basra "residents overwhelmingly reported a substantial improvement in their everyday lives" according to
The New York Times. "Government forces have now taken over Islamic militants' headquarters and halted the death squads and 'vice enforcers' who attacked women, Christians, musicians, alcohol sellers and anyone suspected of collaborating with Westerners", according to the report; however, when asked how long it would take for lawlessness to resume if the Iraqi army left, one resident replied, "one day".[235]

In late April roadside bombings continued to rise from a low in January—from 114 bombings to more than 250, surpassing the May 2007 high.

Speaking before the Congress on 8 April 2008, General
David Petraeus
urged delaying troop withdrawals, saying, "I've repeatedly noted that we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel," referencing the comments of then President Bush and former Vietnam-era General William Westmoreland.[237]
When asked by the Senate if reasonable people could disagree on the way forward, Petraeus said, "We fight for the right of people to have other opinions."[238]

Upon questioning by then Senate committee chair
Joe Biden, Ambassador Crocker admitted that
Al‑Qaeda
in Iraq was less important than the Al Qaeda organization led by Osama bin Laden
along the Afghan-Pakistani border.[239]
Lawmakers from both parties complained that U.S. taxpayers are carrying Iraq's burden as it earns billions of dollars in oil revenues.

An Iraqi Army unit prepares to board a Task Force Baghdad UH-60 Blackhawk
helicopter for a counterinsurgency mission in Baghdad
in 2007.

Iraq became one of the top current purchasers of U.S. military equipment with their army trading its
AK‑47
assault rifles for the U.S. M‑16
and M‑4
rifles, among other equipment.[240]
In 2008 alone, Iraq accounted for more than $12.5 billion
of the $34 billion
U.S. weapon sales to foreign countries (not including the potential F-16 fighter planes.).[241]

Iraq sought 36
F‑16s, the most sophisticated weapons system Iraq has attempted to purchase. The Pentagon notified Congress that it had approved the sale of 24 American attack helicopters to Iraq, valued at as much as $2.4 billion. Including the helicopters, Iraq announced plans to purchase at least
$10 billion
in U.S. tanks and armored vehicles, transport planes and other battlefield equipment and services. Over the summer, the Defense Department announced that the Iraqi government wanted to order more than 400 armored vehicles and other equipment worth up to $3 billion, and six C-130J transport planes, worth up to
$1.5 billion.[242][243]
From 2005 to 2008, the United States had completed approximately $20 billion in arms sales agreements with Iraq.[244]

The
U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement
was approved by the Iraqi government on 4 December 2008.[245]
It established that U.S. combat forces would withdraw from Iraqi cities by 30 June 2009, and that all U.S. forces would be completely out of Iraq by 31 December 2011. The pact was subject to possible negotiations which could have delayed withdrawal and a referendum scheduled for mid-2009 in Iraq, which might have required all U.S. forces to completely leave by the middle of 2010.[246][247]
The pact required criminal charges for holding prisoners over 24 hours, and required a warrant for searches of homes and buildings that are not related to combat.[248]

U.S. contractors working for U.S. forces will be subject to Iraqi criminal law, while contractors working for the State Department and other U.S. agencies may retain their immunity. If U.S. forces commit still undecided "major premeditated felonies" while off-duty and off-base, they will be subject to the still undecided procedures laid out by a joint U.S.‑Iraq committee if the United States certifies the forces were off-duty.[249][250][251][252]

Some Americans have discussed "loopholes"[253]
and some Iraqis have said they believe parts of the pact remain a "mystery".[254]
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has predicted that after 2011 he would expect to see "perhaps several tens of thousands of American troops" as part of a residual force in Iraq.[255]

Several groups of Iraqis protested the passing of the SOFA accord[256][257][258]
as prolonging and legitimizing the occupation. Tens of thousands of Iraqis burned an effigy
of George W. Bush
in a central Baghdad square
where U.S. troops five years previously organized a tearing down of a statue of Saddam Hussein.[137][254][259]
Some Iraqis expressed skeptical optimism that the U.S. would completely end its presence by 2011.[260]
On 4 December 2008, Iraq's presidential council approved the security pact.[245]

A representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al‑Sistani expressed concern with the ratified version of the pact and noted that the government of Iraq has no authority to control the transfer of occupier forces into and out of Iraq, no control of shipments, and that the pact grants the occupiers immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. He said that Iraqi rule in the country is not complete while the occupiers are present, but that ultimately the Iraqi people would judge the pact in a referendum.[259]
Thousands of Iraqis have gathered weekly after Friday prayers and shouted anti‑U.S. and anti-Israeli slogans protesting the security pact between Baghdad and Washington. A protester said that despite the approval of the Interim Security pact, the Iraqi people would break it in a referendum next year.[261]

Aerial view of the Green Zone, Baghdad International Airport, and the contiguous Victory Base Complex in Baghdad

On 1 January 2009, the United States handed control of the
Green Zone
and Saddam Hussein's presidential palace to the Iraqi government in a ceremonial move described by the country's prime minister as a restoration of Iraq's sovereignty. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would propose 1 January be declared national "Sovereignty Day". "This palace is the symbol of Iraqi sovereignty and by restoring it, a real message is directed to all Iraqi people that Iraqi sovereignty has returned to its natural status", al‑Maliki said.

The U.S. military attributed a decline in reported civilian deaths to several factors including the U.S.‑led "troop surge", the growth of U.S.-funded
Awakening Councils, and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's call for his militia to abide by a cease fire.[262]

On 31 January, Iraq held provincial elections.[263]
Provincial candidates and those close to them faced some political assassinations and attempted assassinations, and there was also some other violence related to the election.[264][265][266][267]

Iraqi voter turnout failed to meet the original expectations which were set and was the lowest on record in Iraq,[268]
but U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker characterized the turnout as "large".[269]
Of those who turned out to vote, some groups complained of disenfranchisement and fraud.[268][270][271]
After the post-election curfew was lifted, some groups made threats about what would happen if they were unhappy with the results.[272]

The day before Obama's speech, Prime Minister of Iraq
Nuri al‑Maliki
said at a press conference that the government of Iraq
had "no worries" over the impending departure of U.S. forces and expressed confidence in the ability of the Iraqi Security Forces and police to maintain order without U.S. military support.[274]

On 9 April, the 6th anniversary of Baghdad's fall to coalition forces, tens of thousands of Iraqis thronged Baghdad to mark the anniversary and demand the immediate departure of coalition forces. The crowds of Iraqis stretched from the Sadr City slum in northeast Baghdad to the square around 5 km (3.1 mi) away, where protesters burned an effigy featuring the face of U.S. President George W. Bush.[275]
There were also Sunni Muslims in the crowd. Police said many Sunnis, including prominent leaders such as a founding sheikh from the Sons of Iraq, took part.[276]

On 30 April, the United Kingdom formally ended combat operations.
Prime MinisterGordon Brown
characterized the operation in Iraq as a "success story" because of UK troops' efforts. Britain handed control of Basra to the United States Armed Forces.[277]

On 28 July, Australia withdrew its combat forces as the Australian military presence in Iraq ended, per an agreement with the Iraqi government.

The withdrawal of U.S. forces began at the end of June, with 38 bases to be handed over to Iraqi forces. On 29 June 2009, U.S. forces withdrew from Baghdad. On 30 November 2009, Iraqi
Interior Ministry
officials reported that the civilian death toll in Iraq fell to its lowest level in November since the 2003 invasion.[278]

On 30 June and 11 December 2009, the
Iraqi ministry of oil
awarded contracts to international oil companies for some of Iraq's many oil fields. The winning oil companies enter joint ventures with the Iraqi ministry of oil, and the terms of the awarded contracts include extraction of oil for a fixed fee of approximately $1.40 per barrel.[279][280][281]
The fees will only be paid once a production threshold set by the Iraqi ministry of oil is reached.

On 17 February 2010, U.S. Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates
announced that as of 1 September, the name "Operation Iraqi Freedom" would be replaced by "Operation New Dawn".[282]

On 18 April, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed
Abu Ayyub al-Masri
the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq
in a joint American and Iraqi operation near Tikrit,
Iraq.[283]
The coalition forces believed al-Masri to be wearing a suicide vest and proceeded cautiously. After the lengthy exchange of fire and bombing of the house, the Iraqi troops stormed inside and found two women still alive, one of whom was al-Masri's wife, and four dead men, identified as al-Masri, Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi, an assistant to al-Masri, and al-Baghdadi's son. A suicide vest was indeed found on al-Masri's corpse, as the Iraqi Army subsequently stated.[284]
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
announced the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri at a news conference in Baghdad and showed reporters photographs of their bloody corpses. "The attack was carried out by ground forces which surrounded the house, and also through the use of missiles," Mr Maliki said. "During the operation computers were seized with e-mails and messages to the two biggest terrorists, Osama bin Laden and [his deputy] Ayman al-Zawahiri", Maliki added. U.S. forces commander Gen. Raymond Odierno
praised the operation. "The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al‑Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency", he said. "There is still work to do but this is a significant step forward in ridding Iraq of terrorists."

U.S. Vice President
Joe Biden
stated that the deaths of the top two al‑Qaeda figures in Iraq are "potentially devastating" blows to the terror network there and proof that Iraqi security forces are gaining ground.[285]

On 20 June, Iraq's Central Bank was bombed in an attack that left 15 people dead and brought much of downtown Baghdad to a standstill. The attack was claimed to have been carried out by the
Islamic State of Iraq. This attack was followed by another attack on Iraq's Bank of Trade building that killed 26 and wounded 52 people.[286]

In late August 2010, insurgents conducted
a major attack
with at least 12 car bombs simultaneously detonating from Mosul to Basra and killing at least 51. These attacks coincided with the U.S. plans for a withdrawal of combat troops.[287]

From the end of August 2010, the United States attempted to dramatically cut its combat role in Iraq, with the withdrawal of all U.S. ground forces designated for active combat operations.
The last U.S. combat brigades departed Iraq in the early morning of 19 August. Convoys of U.S. troops had been moving out of Iraq to
Kuwait
for several days, and NBC News
broadcast live from Iraq as the last convoy crossed the border. While all combat brigades left the country, an additional 50,000 personnel (including Advise and Assist Brigades) remained in the country to provide support for the Iraqi military.[288][289]
These troops are required to leave Iraq by 31 December 2011 under an agreement
between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.[290]

The desire to step back from an active counter-insurgency role did not however mean that the Advise and Assist Brigades and other remaining U.S. forces would not be caught up in combat. A standards memo from the Associated Press reiterated "combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials".[291]

State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley stated "... we are not ending our work in Iraq, We have a long-term commitment to Iraq."[292]
On 31 August, Obama announced the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom from the Oval Office. In his address, he covered the role of the United States' soft power, the effect the war had on the United States economy, and the legacy of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.[293]

On the same day in Iraq, at a ceremony at one of
Saddam Hussein's former residences at
Al Faw Palace
in Baghdad, a number of U.S. dignitaries spoke in a ceremony for television cameras, avoiding overtones of the triumphalism
present in U.S. announcements made earlier in the war. Vice President Joe Biden
expressed concerns regarding the ongoing lack of progress in forming a new Iraqi government, saying of the Iraqi people that "they expect a government that reflects the results of the votes they cast". Gen. Ray Odierno
stated that the new era "in no way signals the end of our commitment to the people of Iraq". Speaking in Ramadi
earlier in the day, Gates said that U.S. forces "have accomplished something really quite extraordinary here, [but] how it all weighs in the balance over time I think remains to be seen". When asked by reporters if the seven-year war was worth doing, Gates commented that "It really requires a historian's perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run". He noted the Iraq War "will always be clouded by how it began" regarding Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction, which were never confirmed to have existed. Gates continued, "This is one of the reasons that this war remains so controversial at home".[294]
On the same day Gen. Ray Odierno
was replaced by Lloyd Austin
as Commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Alabama Army National Guard MP, MSG Schur, during a joint community policing patrol in Basra, 3 April 2010

On 7 September, two U.S. troops were killed and nine wounded in an incident at an Iraqi military base. The incident is under investigation by Iraqi and U.S. forces, but it is believed that an Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. forces.[295]

Preparing to buy $13 billion worth of American arms, the
Iraq Defense Ministry
intends to transform the country's degraded conventional forces into a state-of-the-art military and become among the world's biggest customers for American military arms and equipment. Part of the planned purchase includes 140 M1 Abramsmain battle tanks. Iraqi crews have already begun training on them. In addition to the $13 billion purchase, the Iraqis have requested 18
F-16 Fighting Falcons
as part of a $4.2 billion program that also includes aircraft training and maintenance, AIM‑9 Sidewinderair-to-air missiles,
laser-guided bombs
and reconnaissance equipment.[303]
If approved by Congress, the first aircraft could arrive in spring 2013. Under the plan, the first 10 pilots would be trained in the United States.[304]

The Iraqi navy also inaugurated U.S.‑built Swift Class patrol boat at Umm Qasr, Iraq's main port at the northern end of the gulf. Iraq is to take delivery of 14 more of these $20 million, 50‑foot craft before U.S. forces depart. The high-speed vessels' main mission will be to protect the oil terminals at al‑Basra and Khor al-Amiya through which some 1.7 million barrels a day are loaded into tankers for export. Two U.S.‑built offshore support vessels, each costing $70 million, were expected to be delivered in 2011.[303]

The United States Department of Defense had issued notification of an additional $100 million proposed sales of arms from the U.S. to Iraq. General Dynamics is to be the prime contractor on a $36 million deal for the supply of ammunition for Iraq's Abrams M1 A1 tanks. The sale consists of: 14,010 TP-T M831A1 120mm Cartridges; 16,110 TPCSDS-T M865 120mm Cartridges; and 3,510 HEAT-MP-T M830A1 120mm Cartridges. Raytheon is proposed as the prime contractor for a $68 million package of "Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Systems".[305]

In a move to legitimize the existing Iraqi government, the United Nations lifted the Saddam Hussein-era UN restrictions on Iraq. These included allowing Iraq to have a civilian nuclear program, permitting the participation of Iraq in international nuclear and chemical weapons treaties, as well as returning control of Iraq's oil and gas revenue to the government and ending the
Oil-for-Food Programme.[306]

Muqtada al-Sadr returned to Iraq in the holy city of Najaf to lead the Sadrist movement after being in exile since 2007.[307]

On 15 January 2011, three U.S. troops were killed in Iraq. One of the troops was killed on a military operation in central Iraq, while the other two troops were deliberately shot by one or two Iraqi soldiers during a training exercise.[308]

On 6 June, five U.S. troops were killed in an apparent rocket attack on JSS Loyalty.[309]
A sixth soldier, who was wounded in the attack, died 10 days later of his wounds.[310]

On 13 June 2011, two U.S. troops were killed in an IED attack located in Wasit Province.[311]

On 26 June 2011, a U.S. troop was killed.[312]
Sergeant Brent McBride was sentenced to four years, two months for the death.[313]

On 29 June, three U.S. troops were killed in a rocket attack on a U.S. base located near the border with Iran. It was speculated that the militant group responsible for the attack was the same one which attacked JSS Loyalty just over three weeks before.[314]
With the three deaths, June 2011, became the bloodiest month in Iraq for the U.S. military since June 2009, with 15 U.S. soldiers killed, only one of them outside combat.[315]

In September, Iraq signed a contract to buy 18 Lockheed Martin F-16 warplanes, becoming the 26th nation to operate the F-16. Because of windfall profits from oil, the Iraqi government is planning to double this originally planned 18, to 36 F-16s. Iraq is relying on the U.S. military for air support as it rebuilds its forces and battles a stubborn Islamist insurgency.[316]

With the collapse of the discussions about extending the stay of any U.S. troops beyond 2011, where they would not be granted any immunity from the Iraqi government, on 21 October 2011, President Obama announced at a White House press conference that all remaining U.S. troops and trainers would leave Iraq by the end of the year as previously scheduled, bringing the U.S. mission in Iraq to an end.[317]
The last American soldier to die in Iraq before the withdrawal was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on 14 November.[318]

In November 2011, the U.S. Senate voted down a resolution to formally end the war by bringing its authorization by Congress to an end.[319]

U.S. and Kuwaiti troops
closing the gate between Kuwait and Iraq on 18 December 2011.

The last U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq on 18 December, although the U.S. embassy and consulates continue to maintain a staff of more than 20,000 including U.S.
Marine Embassy Guards
and between 4,000 and 5,000 private military contractors.[320][321]
The next day, Iraqi officials issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi. He has been accused of involvement in assassinations and fled to the Kurdish part of Iraq.[322]

The invasion and occupation led to sectarian violence which caused widespread displacement among Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi Red Crescent organization estimated the total internal displacement was around 2.3 million in 2008, and as many as 2 million Iraqis leaving the country. Poverty led many Iraqi women to turn to prostitution to support themselves and their families, attracting sex tourists from regional lands. The invasion led to a constitution which supported democracy as long as laws did not violate traditional Islamic principles, and a parliamentary election was held in 2005. In addition the invasion preserved the autonomy of the Kurdish region, and stability brought new economic prosperity. Because the Kurdish region is historically the most democratic area of Iraq, many Iraqi refugees from other territories fled into the Kurdish land.[323]

Iraqi insurgency
surged in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal. The terror campaigns have since been engaged by Iraqi, primarily radical Sunni, insurgent groups against the central government and the warfare between various factions within Iraq. The events of post U.S. withdrawal violence succeeded the
previous insurgency
in Iraq (prior to 18 December 2011), but have showed different patterns, raising concerns that the surging violence might slide into another civil war. Some 1,000 people were killed across Iraq within the first two months after U.S. withdrawal.

Sectarian violence continued in the first half of 2013— at least 56 people died in April when a Sunni protest in Hawija was interrupted by a government-supported helicopter raid and a series of violent incidents occurred in May. On 20 May 2013, at least 95 people died in a wave of car bomb attacks that was preceded by a car bombing on 15 May that led to 33 deaths; also, on 18 May, 76 people were killed in the Sunni areas of Baghdad. Some experts have stated that Iraq could return to the brutal sectarian conflict of 2006.[324][325]

On 22 July 2013, at least five hundred convicts, most of whom were senior members of al-Qaida who had received death sentences, broke out of Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail when comrades launched a military-style assault to free them. The attack began when a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into prison gates.[326]
James F. Jeffrey, the United States ambassador in Baghdad when the last American troops exited, said the assault and resulting escape "will provide seasoned leadership and a morale boost to Al Qaeda and its allies in both Iraq and Syria ... it is likely to have an electrifying impact on the Sunni population in Iraq, which has been sitting on the fence."[327]

By mid-2014 the country was in chaos with a new government yet to be formed following national elections, and the insurgency reaching new heights. In early June 2014 the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIS) took over the cities of Mosul and Tikrit and said it was ready to march on Baghdad, while Iraqi Kurdish forces took control of key military installations in the major oil city of Kirkuk. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked his parliament to declare a state of emergency that would give him increased powers, but the lawmakers refused.[328]

In the summer of 2014 President Obama announced the return of U.S. Forces to Iraq, but only in the form of aerial support, in an effort to halt the advance of ISIS forces, render humanitarian aid to stranded refugees and stabilize the political situation.[329]
On 14 August 2014, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
succumbed to pressure at home and abroad to step down. This paved the way for Haidar al-Abadi
to take over On 19 August 2014. In what was claimed to be revenge for the aerial bombing ordered by President Obama, ISIS, which by this time had changed their name to the Islamic State, beheaded an American journalist, James Foley, who had been kidnapped two years previously. Despite U.S. bombings and breakthroughs on the political front, Iraq remained in chaos with the Islamic State consolidating its gains, and sectarian violence continuing unabated. On 22 August 2014, suspected Shia militants opened fire on a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers, killing 70 worshippers. Separately, Iraqi forces in helicopters killed 30 Sunni fighters in the town of Dhuluiya.[330]
A day later, apparently in retaliation for the attack on the mosque, three bombings across Iraq killed 35 people.[331]

Marines unload a wounded comrade from an Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter for medical treatment at Al Qaim.

For coalition death totals see the infobox at the top right. See also
Casualties of the Iraq War, which has casualty numbers for coalition nations, contractors, non-Iraqi civilians, journalists, media helpers, aid workers, and the wounded. Casualty figures, especially Iraqi ones, are highly disputed.

There have been several attempts by the media, coalition governments and others to estimate the Iraqi casualties. The table below summarizes some of these estimates and methods.

A memorial in North Carolina in December 2007; U.S. casualty count can be seen in the background[332]

The Bush Administration's
rationale for the Iraq War
has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States, with many U.S. citizens finding many parallels with the Vietnam War.[333]
For example, a former CIA officer described the Office of Special Plans
as a group of ideologues
who were dangerous to U.S. national security and a threat to world peace, and stated that the group lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam.[334]
The Center for Public Integrity
alleges that the Bush administration
made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States.[335]

Both proponents and
opponents
of the invasion have also criticized the prosecution of the war effort along a number of other lines. Most significantly, critics have assailed the United States and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post-invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating human rights abuses. As the war has progressed, critics have also railed against the high human and financial costs. In 2016, the United Kingdom published the
Iraq Inquiry, a public inquiry which was broadly critical of the actions of the British government and military in making the case for the war, in tactics and in planning for the aftermath of the war.[336][337][338]

After President Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, some anti-war groups decided to stop protesting even though the war was still going on. Some of them decided to stop because they felt they should give the new President time to establish his administration, and others stopped because they believed that Obama would end the war.[353]

In March 2013, the total cost of the Iraq War was estimated to have been $1.7 trillion by the Watson Institute of International Studies at
Brown University.[354]
Critics have argued that the total cost of the war to the U.S. economy
is estimated to be from $3 trillion[355]
to $6 trillion,[356]
including interest rates, by 2053. The upper ranges of these estimates include long-term veterans costs and economic impacts. For example, Harvard's public finance expert Linda J. Bilmes has estimated that the long-term cost of providing disability compensation and medical care to U.S. troops injured in the Iraq conflict will reach nearly $1 trillion over the next 40 years.[357]

A
CNN
report noted that the United States-led interim government, the Coalition Provisional Authority
lasting until 2004 in Iraq had lost $8.8 billion in the Development Fund for Iraq. In June 2011, it was reported by CBS News that $6 billion in neatly packaged blocks of $100 bills was air-lifted into Iraq by the George W. Bush administration, which flew it into Baghdad aboard C‑130 military cargo planes. In total, the
Times
says $12 billion in cash was flown into Iraq in 21 separate flights by May 2004, all of which has disappeared. An inspector general's report mentioned that "'Severe inefficiencies and poor management' by the Coalition Provisional Authority would leave no guarantee that the money was properly used", said Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., director of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. "The CPA did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial and contractual controls to ensure that funds were used in a transparent manner."[358]
Bowen told the Times the missing money may represent "the largest theft of funds in national history."[359]

The child
malnutrition
rate rose to 28%.[360]
Some 60–70% of Iraqi children were reported to be suffering from psychological problems in 2007.[361]
Most Iraqis had no access to safe drinking water. A cholera outbreak
in northern Iraq was thought to be the result of poor water quality.[362]
As many as half of Iraqi doctors left the country between 2003 and 2006.[363]
The use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus by the U.S. military has been blamed for birth defects and cancers in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.[364][365][366]

The Foreign Policy Association reported that "Perhaps the most perplexing component of the Iraq refugee crisis ... has been the inability for the United States to absorb more Iraqis following the 2003 invasion of the country. To date, the United States has granted around 84,000 Iraqis refugee status, of the more than two million global Iraqi refugees. By contrast, the United States granted asylum to more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees during the
Vietnam War."[369][370][371]

Killing over 12,000 Iraqis from January 2005 to June 2006, according to Iraqi Interior Minister
Bayan Jabr, giving the first official count for the victims of bombings, ambushes and other deadly attacks.[383]
The insurgents have also conducted numerous suicide attacks
on the Iraqi civilian population, mostly targeting the majority Shia community.[384][385]
An October 2005 report from Human Rights Watch
examines the range of civilian attacks and their purported justification.[386]

Attacks against civilians including children through bombing of market places and other locations reachable by suicide bombers.

Attacks against civilians by sectarian death squads primarily during the
Iraqi Civil war.

Attacks on diplomats and diplomatic facilities including; the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 killing the top UN representative in Iraq and 21 other UN staff members;[387]
beheading several diplomats: two Algerian diplomatic envoys Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi,[388]
Egyptian diplomatic envoy al-Sherif,[389]
and four Russian diplomats.[390]

According to a January 2007
BBC World Service
poll of more than 26,000 people in 25 countries, 73% of the global population disapproved of U.S. handling of the Iraq War.[397]
A September 2007 poll conducted by the BBC found that two-thirds of the world's population believed the U.S. should withdraw its forces from Iraq.[398]

In 2006 it was found that majorities in the UK and Canada believed that the war in Iraq was "unjustified" and – in the UK – were critical of their government's support of U.S. policies in Iraq.[399]

A woman pleads with an Iraqi army
soldier from 2nd Company, 5th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division to let a suspected insurgent free during a raid near Tafaria,
Iraq

Directly after the invasion, polling suggested that a slight majority supported the U.S. invasion.[402]
Polls conducted between 2005 and 2007 showed 31–37% of Iraqi's wanted U.S. and other Coalition forces to withdraw once security was restored and that 26–35% wanted immediate withdrawal instead.[403][404][405]
Despite a majority having previously been opposed to the U.S. presence, 60% of Iraqis opposed American troops leaving directly prior to withdrawal, with 51% saying withdrawal would have a negative effect.[406][407]
In 2006, a poll conducted on the Iraqi public revealed that 52% of the ones polled said Iraq was going in the right direction and 61% claimed it was worth ousting Saddam Hussein.[403]

Though explicitly stating that Iraq had "nothing" to do with 9/11,[408]
erstwhile President George W. Bush consistently referred to the Iraq war as "the central front in the War on Terror", and argued that if the United States pulled out of Iraq, "terrorists will follow us here".[409][410][411]
While other proponents of the war regularly echoed this assertion, as the conflict dragged on, members of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. public, and even U.S. troops questioned the connection between Iraq and the fight against anti-U.S. terrorism. In particular, a consensus developed among intelligence experts that the Iraq war actually increased terrorism. Counterterrorism
expert Rohan Gunaratna
frequently referred to the invasion of Iraq as a "fatal mistake".[412]

London's
International Institute for Strategic Studies
concluded in 2004 that the occupation of Iraq had become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for Mujahideen
and that the invasion "galvanised" al-Qaeda and "perversely inspired insurgent violence" there.[413]
The U.S. National Intelligence Council
concluded in a January 2005 report that the war in Iraq had become a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists; David Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, indicated that the report concluded that the war in Iraq provided terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills ... There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries." The Council's chairman Robert Hutchings
said, "At the moment, Iraq is a magnet for international terrorist activity."[414]
And the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, which outlined the considered judgment of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, held that "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause célèbre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the
Muslim world
and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."[415]

Although some military intelligence analysts have concluded there is no concrete evidence, U.S. Major General Rick Lynch has claimed that Iran has provided training, weapons, money, and intelligence to Shiite insurgents in Iraq and that up to 150 Iranian intelligence agents, plus members of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard
are believed to be active in Iraq at any given time.[420][421]
Lynch thinks that members of the Iranian Quds Force
and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have trained members of the Qazali terror network in explosives technology and also provided the network with arms, munitions, and military advisors. Many explosive devices, including improvised explosives (IEDs) and explosively-formed projectiles (EFPs), used by insurgents are claimed by Lynch to be Iranian-made or designed.

^The conflict is also known as the
War in Iraq, the
Occupation of Iraq, the
Second Gulf War, and
Gulf War II. The period of the war lasting from 2003 to 2010 was referred to as
Operation Iraqi Freedom
by the United States military.

^Michael Petrou (9 September 2011).
"The decline of al-Qaeda".
Maclean's.
George W. Bush gambled on surging thousands more troops to the embattled country. It paid off. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is now a diminished force without territory.

^Spencer C. Tucker.
U.S. Conflicts in the 21st Century: Afghanistan War, Iraq War, and the War on Terror.
ISBN1440838798.
Al Qaeda in Iraq was decimated by the end of the Iraq War in 2011